Sunday Scramble: The Oilers must limit Darnell Nurse, Mangiapane on waivers, approaching the Trade Deadline with fear
Distance did not make the heart go stronger for Edmonton Oilers hockey. While noticeable improvements were made for players like Matt Savoie and Trent Frederic offensively, we were quickly reminded just how poor this team is in the defensive zone.
In the category of Just Oilers Things, how do you score 17 goals on a three-game roadtrip and leave with a 1-2 record? That’s special.
As our Oilersnation colleague Jason Gregor pointed out, the Oilers have scored the most goals in the NHL in the last 10 games, a staggering 44 overall. But have also allowed the most goals in the NHL in the last 10 games, a jaw-dropping 46 overall.
We wait for the “Paul Coffey Effect.”
So far, the biggest effect has been Darnell Nurse: unaware, fighting the puck, not where he should be, time and time again. But that has happening well before, too.
The biggest albatross to the team’s Stanley Cup future isn’t a goaltender – but hey, some bloody stops would be nice – it’s having a $9.25 million defenceman that the team needs to shelter.
This was the beauty of Brett Kulak. Argue all you want about how Kulak played to start the year, he wasn’t very good, but to say that’s just who Kulak was now as a player was alarmist. The Kulak piece of the Skinner-Jarry trade made me dislike the trade at the time. As he moves to Colorado, I hate it even more. Add in Tristan Jarry saying, “it’s tough” in every post-game scrum, and it’s truly abysmal.
Sure, Spencer Stastney has come into the bottom pair and played okay. But there’s no ability to take minutes away from either Darnell Nurse or Jake Walman.
In 20 out of 22 games in last year’s playoffs, Brett Kulak played more than Jake Walman. In eight out of 22 games, Kulak played more than Nurse.
Maybe Kulak was no longer the guy for that job. Okay. But there’s no mechanism in the Oilers lineup for giving Nurse fewer minutes, and the combination of Nurse-Walman is a trainwreck in the defensive zone.
For time immemorial, the Oilers have to find a “Nurse whisperer.”
Then, you ask, is the juice worth the squeeze?
Waivers?!
Shaggy from Scooby Doo said it best, “Zoinks!”
My instant reaction is that the interest in Mangiapane league-wide was less than zero, and the cost to move him would’ve required tying another asset to take the full boat of the contract. If Mangiapane were dealt, the Oilers would be taking back an equally problematic contract. They have to kill the money to create the cap space they need to not just make recalls, but to make any trades, too.
For months, Bowman has balancing fine China in the air, spinning plates and juggling bowling pins as one injury after another has kept delaying a salary cap reckoning. With health now on their side and a belief that Josh Samanski and/or Isaac Howard are worth bringing back up, they have to get rid of the money.
The Mangiapane wager hasn’t worked. I’m sure Mattias Janmark, who is out reportedly long-term with a shoulder injury, will be placed on long-term injured reserve soon.
With that said about Mangiapane, his seven goals are still more than Trent Frederic, Adam Henrique, and Mattias Janmark combined.
That’s the power of a no-trade or a no-move clause in today’s NHL.
Deadline fear It’s impressive how bad the last two free agency periods have been for this team. The Summer of Jeff (Jackson) combined with the handcuffing deals with Frederic and Mangiapane, and all the sudden this team is re-tooling on the fly.
Bad work creates more work time and time again.
The irony is, the time that Bowman can actually fix this is…the off-season with more money to play with.
So far in the Bowman tenure, he’s won on the dollar slots, turning something into nothing often with Podkolzin, Kapanen, Ingram, Hutson, Samanski, etc.
But when he moves towards the tables with higher limits, the stack of chips dwindles fast with few returns: Frederic, Mangiapane, and the Jarry trade.
From a public response perspective, there’s no right answer for Bowman heading into Friday’s trade deadline. If he does very little, he’ll be crucified for “wasting” another prime year of McDavid.
If he swings for a big piece and the Oilers don’t win the Stanley Cup (in itself almost an impossible goal) while giving up major future assets, he’ll be crucified.
I’m very concerned with what Bowman might do in the next few days to “fix” Edmonton’s self-inflicted problems (some his own creation, some Jeff Jackson’s, some Ken Holland’s) to have the roster look championship level.
McDavid narratives are wrong
On a lighter note, Connor McDavid has officially registered his ninth 100th point season of his career.
It’s become popular online for trolls to create this narrative that McDavid isn’t a big game player. He “can’t” win the big one.
Ultimately, as unfair as it is, that narrative will be around until he wins a Stanley Cup. No one wants to join the pantheon of Ted Williams, Dan Marino, Charles Barkley, et al., who were great players, but didn’t win a title.
With that said, let’s not forget that there has no bigger offensive force in the game since Gretzky retired.
His ability to score goals and create chances is inevitable in a way I’ve never seen before. Only Gretzky and Lemieux have more 100-point seasons than he does, and Wayne’s 15 years, I would suggest, is not safe.
There’s been a lot of picking on McDavid. There was the drama this week with Mark Spector’s question about whether he thought winning would be “this hard.” The last seven days has an outright media frenzy.
But Connor McDavid is an almost singular greatness. I still firmly believe his time will come.
This week
In other words, this was not a great week for the Oilers.
Their Pacific Division record keeps them very much in the mix to host at minimum a round in the playoffs, but their inconsistent play makes them seem ripe to get picked off in a points race.
As pessimistic as I am at the best of times, I don’t feel the doom and gloom narrative of missing the playoffs.
Despite Edmonton being eighth in the Western Conference in points percentage, they still have a four-point cushion overall on non-playoff teams. One of those clubs – Kings, Predators, Sharks – has to overtake them for the Oilers to miss. With that said, the Oilers may have inadvertently helped the enemy after demolishing the Los Angeles Kings 8-1 on Thursday. The Kings fired coach Jim Hillier this morning.
Would he still have a job if the Oilers only won 5-1? Maybe. But Ken Holland isn’t going to go quietly. Do the Kings get a new coach bump?
The Oilers return home for a pair of games, before next week, beginning a meat grinder of the Western Conference roadtrip against two division leaders.
Record this week: 1-2 Record in February: 1-4 Record vs Pacific: 9-5-3 Road record vs Pacific: 3-5-1 Road record overall: 14-4-4 Home vs Ottawa on Tuesday Home vs Carolina on Friday Away vs Vegas on Sunday Kevin Lowe
I was fortunate on Friday to meet Kevin Lowe at the Bonnyville Pontiacs annual event, the Victor Ringuette Sportsman Dinner, and have a long, extended conversation with him.
The live fireside chat could’ve gone on for hours and hours. Lowe is a great speaker and doesn’t mince words.
It’s funny, behind the scenes, we talked about Spector’s question to McDavid, and he relayed how the dynasty Oilers were once called “weak-kneed wimps” by Terry Jones after losing in 1982 to the Los Angeles Kings, aka the Miracle on Manchester.
This market is always firm with the club.
A couple points I found interesting:
He mentioned how he thinks Cale Makar misplayed the 3-on-3 overtime winner for Jack Hughes. He believes a Canada win was almost inevitable if they didn’t chase. Chris Pronger’s agent went to Lowe an hour after losing Game 7 of the 2006 Stanley Cup Final, reaffirming that Pronger still wanted out. Imagine. Just an hour later… He still had choice words for Mike Comrie about how the whole hold-out/trade request situation unfolded. But overall, he’s over it. I pressed for specifics about 80’s Oilers party stories. Unfortunately, not much was shared (or remembered). However, they did damage the Cup pretty badly once, and had to get it repaired at an autobody shop. Some of the workers there engraved their names in the cup while it was there, and it wasn’t discovered for months… that ushered in the era of the Keeper of the Cup. Wishing you…
In the meantime, let’s enjoy one of the great days on our sporting calendar: Trade Deadline. Let us pray to the Hockey Gods that if we utter the words, “Holy F***” it’s for a good reason…
Michael Menzies is an Oilersnation columnist and has been the play-by-play voice of the Bonnyville Pontiacs in the AJHL since 2019. With seven years news experience as the Editor-at-Large of Lakeland Connect in Bonnyville, he also collects vinyl, books, and stomach issues.
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